The Sterling Sky CTR Experiment: Live Proof That Clicks Move Rankings

In June 2024, Rand Fishkin ran a live experiment during a Sterling Sky webinar. The setup was simple. The results were not.

Fishkin asked the webinar audience to open Google, search for “Vietnamese Restaurant Seattle,” and click on a specific result sitting on page two. Within minutes, that result jumped to position #2 on page one.

Live. In real time. With hundreds of people watching.

The experiment wasn’t a one-off.

The Sterling Sky team repeated the test multiple times with the same pattern. Each time, a burst of coordinated clicks pushed a lower-ranking result up dramatically. And each time, the ranking gains reversed within days once the clicks stopped.

The pattern was consistent: surge of clicks, rapid ranking improvement, then a steady decline back to the original position.

This isn’t a case study buried in a blog post. This happened live during a webinar, with the audience participating and observing the results together. It’s about as close to a controlled public experiment as SEO gets.

What this tells us about how Google processes clicks.

Two things became clear from the Sterling Sky experiments.

First, clicks do influence rankings. The effect was immediate and observable. A page that had no business ranking #2 for “Vietnamese Restaurant Seattle” got there purely because real people clicked on it. That’s a direct demonstration of click signals affecting Google’s ranking algorithm.

Second, consistency matters. The temporary nature of the gains isn’t a failure — it’s actually informative. It tells us that Google doesn’t just count clicks in a single burst. The ranking system evaluates click patterns over time.

This aligns with what we know about NavBoost’s 13-month rolling window from the Google API leak. NavBoost doesn’t look at a single day of clicks and make permanent adjustments. It evaluates sustained patterns of user behavior over months.

The consistency principle.

A one-time burst of clicks produces a one-time spike in rankings. Sustained clicks over weeks and months produce lasting results. This is exactly what NavBoost’s architecture would predict.

Think of it like building a reputation. One good day doesn’t change how people perceive you long-term. But months of consistent positive signals do.

This is why SerpClix click orders are designed to run continuously over time rather than in short bursts. The Sterling Sky experiment demonstrated the mechanism. The 13-month rolling window explains the timeline. Sustained click campaigns align with how Google actually evaluates user behavior signals.

The bottom line.

The Sterling Sky experiment provided something rare in SEO: live, public, repeatable evidence that clicks move rankings. The fact that rankings reverted when clicks stopped isn’t a limitation — it’s the key insight. Consistency is the differentiator between a temporary spike and a lasting improvement.

SerpClix uses an army of over 400,000 real human clickers to boost your organic CTR. Get started with a free trial or log in to your dashboard to set up your next click order.

Please note: there are no guarantees in search engine optimization, ever. There are innumerable factors that can affect search engine rankings. And, realistically, most sites should focus their efforts on traditional SEO before even thinking about using non-traditional techniques like SerpClix. All SEO efforts can involve an element of risk. Some techniques are certainly more risky than others. SerpClix employs real human clickers, so we think our service is far less risky than trying to use automated or robotic click methods. But, like all SEO strategies, there is an element of risk because Google’s algorithm is unknown and subject to change at any time. For more information please see our Buyer FAQs.